NAGOYA – A member of the Shinshiro Municipal Assembly in Aichi Prefecture proposed distributing “punctured condoms” to married residents to bolster the city’s dwindling population, the legislature’s secretariat said Friday.

Independent Assemblyman Tomonaga Osada was verbally reprimanded Wednesday for the controversial proposal last month and told his remarks “lacked dignity for an assembly member and consideration” by the assembly chairman, who decided to delete them from the minutes of the June 18 meeting.

Osada, 49, is serving his third term in Shinshiro, which has a population of about 49,000. He said he wanted the people of the city to “feel friendly toward City Hall,” which is deemed conservative. He also wanted more people to raise children in Shinshiro but said he would like to apologize for making an “inappropriate” proposal.

Osada’s “punctured condoms” proposal became widely known after another member of the assembly from the Japanese Communist Party wrote about it in his blog on Monday.

An apology… and not only is that all you require from this person, who is obviously a dangerous idiot, you decide to strike it from the records? Why, so your governing body won’t have to be associated with its own stupidity?

This person clearly doesn’t have the best interests of his constituents in mind, so how in the world do you justify not only letting him continue in his post but literally covering up his blatant violation of the public trust? What rational excuse is there for allowing this person to continue in any legislative capacity?

All this is rhetorical, of course; it’s clear from their actions that these people simply don’t care. Do we act with our people’s best interest in mind… or do we scramble to save face? Quick apology, done and done. Now on to more important matters, like… well… I don’t know, what is it we’re actually supposed to accomplish here, aside from winning re-election?